wilcal

Lol, "what are they going to do for us". How about, the city owns the streets so you should feel lucky you are getting sustainable infrastructure. I don't think the parking plan is really that bad, and again, the museum district is weird because of the lack of commercial/restaurant spaces. How much of the basis of this is due to people parking and then riding the train to downtown or the med center for work?

Interesting as city went against any type of separated bike lane on the section south of HCC to the park. They said that they received concerns about street parking and some of the museums *cough*childrensmuseum*cough* didn't want them routing it immediately next to their bus drop off area. If the residents had demanded dedicated on-street bikeway it would have likely gotten done. For reference: Midtown SNC was against the use of dedicated in-street bikeway, but they are getting it in their area.

I definitely hadn't seen anything written/official on timeline like this. Most of the La Branch construction is new sidewalk ramps. Went and took a few pics this weekend (see below) I think I mentioned already in this thread, but the delay on the Austin street build is related to the new bike signals. Every street light will get bike timing/signals and evidently there is a backorder on the parts. The paint/armadillos go down quickly. They were doing 2-3 blocks/day on other projects, so maybe 2-3 weeks to do all of Austin. The signal work is a different story.

I have seen that, and I think that this is going to be the base of the CoH rules and regs regarding them. Considering it's been out for almost a year, the city is bound and determined to drag their feet out on this one.

Your project looks amazing! I love the exterior aesthetic and the interior is incredible as well. Well well done. I'm pretty sure I read through all of the posts and the FAQ, but noticed the omission of total construction costs. Would you be willing to share or give a ballpark amount? (and the finished sq ft amount)

Yeah, looks like almost exactly 1 mile each direction, which really isn't too bad. That could be done in 6-8 minutes with a dedicated lane/signal prioritization for sure.

Packers have Titletown. Looks like they're adding a townhome component. Edit: Also, this must include the Home Plate Bar & Grill lot, too, right? It says it's a 1.7 acre parcel, but 1800 Texas is only 1/3 of an acre. Edit2: Home Plate has the 1800 Texas address, so evidently duh. HTX Fan Tavern doesn't.

Riiiiiiiight. I'll believe that when I see it. That date has been pushed back so many times. Will a full connection make sense, or would it be better to have it as a stub with it's own bus or two? Basically, how much extra time would it take if you were doing Galleria to Downtown. I'm not against the idea unless it's less than 8-10 minutes.

All I know is that Montrose Cheese & Wine is evidently going to be serving Pasteis de nata, which I've not been able to find an authentic one in Houston, yet.

Local coverage: http://www.ourtribune.com/headlines/22361-metro-proposes-moving-kingwood-park-and-ride.html It's moronic and no one knows where Metro came up with it. Their basis of wanting to move it is because the current P&R location flooded during Harvey. Wellll, the freaking highway flooded too, so the proposed location somewhere along 59 would be worthless. Also, evidently a good number of people that live in the front portion of Kingwood just drive to the Townsen P&R location. I think that there is a 0% chance that this happens. I really think that they should combined the I-10 BRT with the Galleria BRT line. That way you can one connection from the red/green/purple lines and other BRT lines ending in downtown (lika IAH) to the Galleria.

Not the greatest pic, but was driving by this weekend and snagged a shot while at the red light. I think it looks great except for that awkward drive-thru. I wish it was a patio like in the renderings for a restaurant

That release says that it's within a TIRZ, but now within what TIRZ I guess is the question. I looked up the boundaries of the Midtown TIRZ, and it's pretty close to what we'd define as 'Midtown' http://www.houstontx.gov/ecodev/tirzmaps/maps/tirz_2.pdf Here are the boundaries of the TIRZ in the area: I know that Midtown TIRZ has been buying up properties in the 2nd/3rd wards with the idea to develop them into affordable housing (they have to spend some portion of their budget on affordable housing), so who really knows.

Was on campus for a meeting two weeks ago and the new library looks wonderful. Really impressive seeing the campus grow!

To be clear, I was laughing at the idea that Houston can achieve carbon neutrality be 2050. The transportation ambitions are insane!

The bus stops on Polk will be "floating" bus stops as well. Basically, the bike lane will be encumbered by bus passengers crossing the lane instead of being encumbered by the bus itself. I've haven't seen any drawings, but think something like this (albeit much smaller)

CoH released their Climate Action Plan to get our metro carbon-neutral by 2050 (please stifle your laughter) and it addresses market-based parking as part of that plan. Full plan: http://www.greenhoustontx.gov/climateactionplan/20190725-draft-CAP.pdf As much as we hate to think it, 2030 is only 11.5 years away. The city has made previous comments that they want to expand the market-based parking if it's successful, so it'll be interesting to see if we could it expanded as far as BW8 in the next 10 years.

Maybe there is some confusion here. The Planning Commission is a 26 person panel that approves what people want to do to their personal property, etc. We also have the Planning & Development Department. They oversee tons of stuff like Complete Communities, the Bikeway implementation, and all sorts of other stuff.

It begins!

This is intriguing to me. Surely they have the legal authority to do what they want. I know that there are some state restrictions for speed limits, but things like lane width they definitely have control over. An ex Houston planner told me once that they utilize the setback requirements to help exert influence over projects. Like the thai food high rise on Montrose. Gave the minimal setbacks in exchange for less parking in the project. The elimination of min parking requirements inside BW8 was listed in the draft carbon-neutral Houston by 2050 proposal that just came out. I think it said implementation by 2030 though for that covenant. You would think that it would be easier for our planning department to do things like complete streets since we are the largest city in the US without a separate city transportation authority.

Well, from what I understand, that date was somewhat flexible and really construction just needs to have started, not be finished. Yes, the Polk deal is a big one, although it kills me that there are a few blocks in EaDo around Emancipation that will not have connectivity due to road construction that is supposed to last for awhile. No, it's ridiculous. And it's only this wide for fourish blocks. I'm still outside the industry at this point, but we're talking about paint with the implementations they are doing currently. Planning has been really cautious and getting lots of community feedback and I think that it basically wasn't worth their effort for a four block section that doesn't go anywhere (right now). I think things are changing for the better, but the change is way too slow. I think that they were hamstrung by City Council and the council is finally coming around and realizing shit has gotta change. Even the most basic changes draws massive gnashing of teeth. Stuff like Zipcar wanting to add more cars in dedicated on-street parking (which they pay for parking for) was met with chagrin from some far-flung city councilmembers ("we need somewhere to park when we visit downtown"). But yeah, we're getting there!

Agreed, and they are really only getting the best bang for the buck for ROW when they have to have every inch, like at Polk. Tuam west of Bagby was recently completely redone and instead of utilizing the ROW they just threw all of the extra width into lane width, which just causes people to drive faster. They didn't even put in any crosswalks. That car on the left parked and barely taking up half of the lane is a 6.5' wide Cadillac SUV. This road and this section was on the Houston bike plan and really doesn't need this crazy lane width.

Hey, that's my blog's twitter account I have a little more info I've gotten since then. Part of the delay was getting Hardy/Elysian finished evidently. Hardy needed the parking standoffs installed, and that took awhile. This isn't set in stone, but this is the general order of completion for remaining projects: La Branch (sharrows/signage only. Edit: and repaving), Polk, Austin, and Gray. Unknown about Cleburne. Hopefully, that's not up in the air. There is some equipment related to signal work that takes a while to be delivered and most of that is going on Austin and Gray. Polk is a big project and they'll be adding some cool 'floating bus stops' a la something like this:

Market-based parking ordinance has passed!

Market-Based parking headed before City Council next week: The map that is being presented:

Awesome maps, was really considering doing that myself. I really want to think that they'll at least run some service on the weekend, but maybe not. At least some multi-stop service like they run during the day instead of non-stop P&R level of service.